


Cup and Saucer

by perch



Category: Canaan
Genre: F/F, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perch/pseuds/perch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Canaan muses about the colors in her life, Siam, Alphard and Maria. 1st person POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cup and Saucer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowblight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowblight/gifts).



Cup and Saucer

I had a different name once, but it got used up in the war. It was a mother's name. A milk name. A name I don’t remember and don’t care about. Siam gave me a different name, one that was only slightly used: Canaan. It was Alphard's name once, before she downgraded to a star. Siam died before I could be graduated and I never bothered to choose a different name. I don’t know if he’d ever have given me another name. He seemed to only know how to name orphans just the one; but that’s okay. I like this one just fine. It's a good name, weighty, tasty, rolling around on my tongue, all blue and purple, with just a dash of red, around the left edge. It’s a promised land.

I rarely like colors, they’re a pain in the ass, splashed around my sight, only useful for target practice. Alphard’s colors look like shit. They’re the same as a lot of people’s, but they’re shit all-the-same. Colors designed solely for my bullets to trace. Blue flames that burn up the killers and the killed. Mixed in with unbloom colors, ua colors, Snake colors. A snake, like the one on my arm, and the one on hers and the one on Siam’s. Three left arms, two sleeves, one snake tattoo. She doesn’t deserve that tattoo, not after the train. She was my sister, but she doesn’t deserve that either or me. She was a failure to the name. To Siam’s training. To the tattoo.

I don’t like to think of Siam training her. Of her deciding to get the tattoo as a testament. Of a woman, who wanted to be like him, be him, be marked with the family lines. Some rich little princess who he was hired to teach to be him. Wallowing in her dirty, stagnant mud, trying to pull the whole world down to her level, just to prove she and Siam were the same. That her hatred is the only proper way to exist. That controlled hatred is the only solution for the hard act of living.

But fuck Alphard. She’s lost everything. Her organization, her left arm, her name. Now she’s just a One-Armed Woman. Nameless boogeyman. She killed so many nameless people, people that were just rainbows I navigated around or shot. Those people I did not care about. They only mattered to me because they mattered to Maria. They were just blue flames, burning forever in my eyes.

After I ‘killed’ Alphard, I went back. To the space below the floorboards where Siam found me. To the house where I learned how to shoot a gun. To the tattooist where I got my mark. To the flop house in Shanghai where I worked, an invincible Iron Army of One. To a gallery in Japan.

To Maria.

I love Maria’s color, it’s a gentle, golden sunburst petals of flowers I cannot name and solely hers. She’s simple in all the right places and soothing. I can trust her with my favorite things. A stuffed toy I shot to muffle the sound of a bullet hitting its target in Shanghai. A red string. Maria’s easy on me, for me, someone I can tie up with a string and I can trust not to break it. Someone I can play cat’s cradle with. I try to study up on her culture, make her happy, she’s is awesome after all. Friends are good to have, even in my line of work, especially in my line. It’s important to be normal.

I know she likes shopping and tea and string. The television told me while I was in Shanghai. I like to keep her golden petal glowing, soft and beautiful, like the pictures. Her pictures, tell me what she sees, but this gallery tells me what she loves and what she thinks about.

Like this one, named Canaan. That Canaan, my Canaan.

‘Canaan?’ her voice warbles tentatively to my left. ‘Canaan it is you.’

She grabs my hands, pulls me around, her antenna bobbing up and down. She’s beautiful, petals bursting everywhere, uniquely hers.

‘When did you get to Japan?’ she continued. ‘Did you come all this way for business?’

‘I wanted to see you,’ I explain, my eyes don’t need to be red to see her, to see how she glows. ‘So I just dropped by Japan.’

‘You look great Canaan,’ she smiles at me. ‘You always look great.’

She folds me into her arms, nuzzling my cheek with her own. It feels good, alive. I wrap my arms around her waist and fold her close, closing my eyes to the stares and disapproving glances, to the foolish rainbow people around me.

‘Want to get something to eat?’ I ask, as she pulls back. ‘Have some tea?’

‘My gallery closes in an hour,’ she puts her hand on my face. ‘Look around, if you want.’

‘Of course,’ I smile at her as a man coughs at her elbow and leads her away to talk to a patron. I look at her work, the corners of my eyes following her around, seeing her trail around the room.

***

‘Do you have it?’ I sip, looking at her over the rim of my cup.

‘Have what?’ she asks, her lips closing around the bit of cake on her fork. Her shoulders scrunch up and she rocks back and forth. ‘Oh my god, so good!’

‘You know, that,’ I place my cup down and look at her.

‘Oh that,’ she says, putting her fork down and rummaging in her bag. ‘Of course, I always carry it around. See?’

She holds out a small amount of red string, coiled in her palm.

‘Did you want to play?’ she starts to loop the string around her finger, hands and wrists, holding the cradle towards me. 'Your move.’

Our hands flow through the patterns. Cat’s Eye to Fish in a Dish. Eiffel Tower and Jacob’s Ladder. Cup and Saucer, The Moon Gone Dark, a kiss.

I pull back. Maria looks at me, her eyes trembling and soft. Her tongue darting out to touch her soft lips, where my lips had touched them. The cradle collapses, her fingers touch her mouth the red string pulling our hands closer.

'That was my first kiss,’ she says, the words bubbling around her fingers.

'Mine too,’ I say. 'Was that okay? That was okay right?’

'It was better than okay,’ she says, the red string between us a promise. ‘It was awesome!’

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my partner Reskel for the beta.


End file.
